Does capitalism = greed? It can, and often does, but does it have to? I would think, no, it does not. I'm a fan of capitalism but I can live and work within the system without being greedy. Capitalism does not absolutely have to be driven by greed. An adherence to the following verse could also lead to the same benefits as a capitalistic society.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

I tend to agree with you minus the religous motivation. I think a main point that Donahue should have pursued is the deeper meaning of the phenomena of "greed".

Friedman defines greed as "humans desire to pursue self interests"...and I would agree...except he left out a key phrase.....it shoud be "humans desire to pursue self interest AT ANY COST"....at any cost to the environment or the well being of others or to moral and ethical codes of civilized society.

The pursuit of happiness should never be mistaken for greed. I love Donahue....but he let this guy off way to easy.

IMO you could replace the word greed with corruption and then the thought starts to make some sense. Our country has plenty of business owners/leaders that are ethical, charitable, honest and believe in building value for customers, employees, etc. A majority of the problem is due to power hungry, unethical and corrupt players.

Using a different definition of greed does not change the accuracy of what Milton Friedman said. If you prefer to use a different definition, then just substitute economic self interest, everywhere Milton says greed, and he is still right, and capitalism is still the best economic system so far.

The reason that Donahue didn't argue with Milton about the definition of the word greed, is because the debate was about capitalism.

As Ron pointed out, there is no disagreement between what he said in his anti-greed post and what Friedman says in this video. Note that Friedman doesn't fall into the trap of saying that greed is good, as an Objectivist might, but points out first that people are greedy in any economic or political system, and second that capitalism benefits the poor. I heartily agree with both Ron and with Friedman (in these cases anyway) and I was waiting with bated breath for one of our progressive friends to accuse me of hypocrisy. I didn't think you would conflate the personal, spiritual vice of greed with the societal freedom of capitalism.

I guess what can frustrate many of those today are the disregard some multinationals have for ethics, and the environment in having goods manufactured.

Capitalism was the ideal system when paired with enforced property rights AND real antitrust enforcement.

INSTEAD we have, as of late been stuck with large oligopolies across many key industries that control too much. And at the same time many countries outside the US, lack enforceable property rights to protect their citizens individually and fail to protect their environment around them. Conversely, for the most part, we stay protected over here.

We need to reintroduce free enterprise in this country and around the world with some real, enforceable property rights & antitrust enforcement.